1Subject Vessel
Identify the vessel you are listing. Nothing here is required beyond year, make, model and location — at first contact that is usually all anyone has. Identify the subject vessel. Anything captured below fills the editable fields for your review; nothing reaches the appraisal unreviewed.
Pasting text from a listing page? Open every “Show more” and Specifications panel first. Anything still collapsed is not copied, and its figures will be missing here.
Drives every age calculation. Defaults to today.
Noted in the narrative, never used in the calculation.
The price the vessel is listed at, or the figure the seller has in mind. Never used in the calculation — the analysis tests it against the evidence. Leave it blank and the analysis states a recommended asking range instead of testing a figure.
All optional. Propulsion only affects which price index is offered for replacement-cost escalation in Section 5 — it does not adjust the value. Hours are per engine; separate multiple engines with / and they are averaged. Where set, the matching adjustment on each comparable is directed automatically.
These three attributes exist to direct per-comparable adjustments rather than to describe the vessel for its own sake. Setting water use to freshwater, for instance, means a saltwater comparable is adjusted downward automatically and in a consistent direction, instead of the surveyor deciding the sign afresh on every row.
Propulsion is different from the other three: it drives no adjustment at all. Its only job is to preselect the boat-building price index used if a replacement cost is escalated in Section 5, because BLS publishes separate series for inboard, outboard and sterndrive vessels. Left unspecified, the broad all-boat-building index is used, which is the honest default when the drive type was never established. Whatever it is set to, the index remains selectable by hand in Section 5.
Leaving one at Not specified is a real answer, not a gap: the corresponding adjustment is locked at zero and the narrative does not claim a difference that was never established. Water use in particular is never inferred from a listing, because it is rarely stated and guessing it from location would be a guess dressed as data.
2Sold Comparables
Recorded sold prices are the primary basis for market value. Each sale is normalized to the subject’s age before it is used.
Do you have recorded sold prices for comparable vessels?
Sold comparables are the primary basis for market value.
3On-Market Listings optional
Vessels currently listed for sale — the competition. These establish where the subject stands in today’s market: what a buyer weighing her against the alternatives is actually looking at. The subject vessel does not belong here.
Do not enter the subject vessel here, even though she may well be listed for sale herself. Her asking price already sits in Section 1, where the analysis tests it against the evidence rather than counting it as evidence. Entered again here, she becomes part of the market she is being measured against — and where no sold comparables exist, her own asking price would help set her own value.
Do you have current asking prices for vessels listed for sale?
Used for market positioning. Not incorporated into the value unless no sold comparables exist.
4Valuation Guide Reference optional
BUCValuPro™, NADA or PowerBoat Guide figures. Reference only — they never drive the value on their own. Leave it blank if the vessel is not listed in any guide; the analysis then rests on comparable sales alone.
Do you have valuation guide data — BUCValuPro™, NADA or PowerBoat Guide?
Reference only. Never the primary driver of value.
This is about the guide’s own figures, not the subject vessel’s condition — that is Section 6 and nothing here changes it.
What it is for. A guide range may already have a condition uplift or reduction built into it before you touch anything. If it does, and you also apply a condition percentage in Section 6, condition gets counted twice — once by the guide and once by you. This setting is how the analysis knows which case it is in.
It does not move the concluded value on its own. What it changes is what the document discloses, and whether a double-count caution is raised in the ledger and the narrative.
Read it from the report — the default, and right nearly always. The tool decides in this order: the Condition Adjustment as printed figure above, if you entered one — a $0 there means the guide applied nothing, whatever the condition is called; failing that, the condition name, which it can only judge for guides whose vocabulary it knows. The document then states which of the two it went on, so a reader can see whether the answer was read or inferred.
Yes — the range already includes it — the analysis treats the guide range as carrying a condition adjustment. If you also blend the guide into the value and apply a Section 6 condition percentage, the ledger records a double-count caution and the narrative states that the guide figures were produced with a condition already selected.
No — the range is condition-neutral — the analysis treats the guide range as carrying none, so no caution is raised. Use this when you can see from the report that the guide applied nothing but the tool has guessed otherwise.
Either answer you give outranks what the report says, because you are the one looking at it. The document records that you stated it.
BUCValuPro starts from the same values as the printed BUC Used Boat Price Guide at the beginning of each edition, and is updated as new information is gathered. Its condition and area adjustment scales are more granular than the broader scales printed in the book, so a percentage taken from the book’s table will not always reproduce a BUCValuPro figure and should not be used to check one.
Condition and area. Unless the user specifies otherwise, the evaluation is given for a vessel in “BUC condition” in the Northeast & Mid Atlantic area — a vessel ready for sale, requiring no additional work and normally equipped for its size. Any other condition named on the report means an adjustment is already inside the figures.
What is and is not included. Engine value is included in most cases, but for outboard vessels the engines are excluded and offered as an addition. Trailers are always excluded and offered the same way.
Replacement value, in BUC’s words, reflects the market price of a new boat with average equipment. It does not include condition or area adjustments, and for an outboard boat the engines are not included.
Matches are returned by decreasing probability of fit, so the model shown may not be exactly the one entered. BUC states it cannot evaluate every engine option for every model and displays the closest match.
5Replacement Cost optional
Cost to build or buy an equivalent vessel new at the effective date. Reported for insurance and as context for the depreciation scales — it does not feed the market value calculation.
Replacement cost is what it would take to build or buy an equivalent vessel new at the effective date. It answers a different question from market value, which is what this vessel would sell for in its current condition, and insurers frequently want both.
It is also the basis the Martin and INA scales are actually published against — those tables give the proportion of current replacement value a vessel retains at a given age. Recording the figure here makes that relationship visible even though the comparable-sales analysis derives value independently.
Where the figure comes from. You ask the people who sell them. For a vessel still in production that is a call to the builder or a dealer: what does one cost new today, rigged comparably? That answer is the replacement cost. Enter it, record the source, and leave the escalation box alone — the figure is already current. A valuation guide may also print one, which is convenient when you have a guide, but it is one source among several and rarely the best.
When escalation is needed. Only when the best figure available is not current, and the usual reason is that the model is no longer built. If nobody can quote a new one because there isn’t one, and the strongest evidence is what the last hulls delivered for some years ago, that figure is real but stale. Escalating it to the effective date using a published boat-building price index is more defensible than reporting a stale number as current, or inventing an uplift. The same applies to a builder’s quotation obtained for an earlier appraisal.
Most appraisals will not need escalation at all. Where it is used, the narrative states the source figure, its date, the index series, both index values and the resulting factor, so a reader can check the arithmetic.
Guide replacement figures are often stale or generic. Where you have a better number — a manufacturer quotation, a dealer's build sheet, your own experience of comparable new construction — enter it and record where it came from. The narrative reports the source, because “as quoted by the manufacturer” and “based on the surveyor’s experience” are different claims and should not read alike.
Do you want to state a Replacement Cost?
Reported for reference. Never used to derive market value.
6Subject Vessel Adjustments
How the subject vessel differs from the comparable sales. Condition and equipment are handled here together so the same advantage is never counted twice — choose one method below to drive the value. The condition rating always informs the narrative regardless of which method is selected.
How the value is derived — the figure every adjustment below is applied to. The tool uses the strongest available evidence by default; switch to Blend to combine sources with weights.
Comps primary is correct in nearly every case, and it is the default. Recorded sold prices are what a vessel actually changed hands for; everything else is an opinion about what one might. The tool takes the strongest evidence you have supplied and uses it, so with sold comparables entered there is nothing to decide here.
Blend sources is for the case where more than one source carries genuine evidential weight and none clearly dominates — typically when sold comparables are few, or absent, and guide data or asking prices are the only other evidence available. It is not a mechanism for moving the answer toward a preferred figure; weightings should follow from the quality of each source and then be left alone.
Where comparables are plentiful and closely matched, blending usually weakens the conclusion rather than strengthening it — averaging strong evidence with weaker evidence produces something weaker than the strong evidence alone. Guide data is reference material unless you have deliberately decided to rely on it.
Sets the condition language used in the narrative. The percentage above is editable — click it to set a market-supported figure for the selected rating, or leave it at the default.
These are mutually exclusive by design. Applying a condition percentage and itemized equipment for the same advantage would double-count it.
Equipment the comparables lacked. Enter contributory value, not installed cost.
Contributory value is what the market pays for a feature, routinely far below what it cost to install. A $180,000 stabilizer may add $60,000 to what a buyer will pay. Entering the invoice figure is among the most common ways an appraisal becomes indefensible.
Enter only equipment the comparable sales did not have. Where they carried similar gear, the advantage is already reflected in their achieved prices, and adding it again double-counts.
Off by default — keeps the narrative concise and avoids a brokerage-listing tone.
Receipts & documented cost optional
Auto-filled from dropped receipts (editable). Leave blank if unavailable (most appraisals).
Additional discretionary adjustment(s) optional
Documented reasons outside condition and equipment. Applied last. State the basis.
This is the adjustment most likely to be challenged, because it is the one with no structural check behind it. Everything else on this page derives from data entered above; this is the surveyor’s judgment applied directly to the result.
Legitimate uses: a known defect not captured by condition, a distressed or non-arm’s-length sale, an encumbrance, a survey finding. Each should be stated plainly and supported by something a reader can verify. Left blank, the narrative attributes it to professional discretion — which is honest, but weaker than a stated reason.
If a discretionary adjustment is doing substantial work in the conclusion, that usually indicates the comparable set needs revisiting rather than the adjustment needing enlarging.
Additional Settings rounding and narrative detail
Applies to the narrative, the headline figure and the calculation summary alike.
Rounding signals the precision the analysis actually supports. A figure carried to the dollar implies an accuracy that comparable-sales analysis cannot deliver, and invites challenge on digits that were never meaningful.
The unrounded figure is always disclosed alongside the rounded one, so nothing is hidden either way. Turn rounding off where a specific figure is required — a settlement, a stated policy limit, or a lender's fixed amount.
Whichever you choose applies consistently. A rounded headline over an unrounded narrative is the combination most likely to be questioned.
Changes the wording throughout, and what the analysis document concludes. A broker’s analysis applies the same comparable-sales methodology but is not an appraisal, and says so. Replacement cost is a surveyor concept and does not appear in broker mode.
Appears in the header of the analysis document. Stored in this browser only — it is never uploaded, and it is not cleared by Reset Form.
A review prompt, not a rule. No standard prescribes a figure here, so this is a default rather than an authority. A comparable requiring a large adjustment is weaker evidence than one requiring a small one; the analysis document marks those at or beyond this figure and leaves the weight they carry to you.
On by default. Turning it off leaves the figure recorded in Section 5 and on screen, but keeps it out of the written statement — useful where the report addresses market value only and a replacement figure would invite questions it is not there to answer. It never affects the concluded value either way.
Applies to comparable sales, exclusions, and any vessel flagged for extrapolation or clamping. Beyond this count the narrative gives a range instead of a list.
Naming every comparable reads well with three and becomes unreadable with forty, duplicating a calculation summary that already carries the full detail. Past this threshold the narrative reports the count and the range instead.
Nothing is lost either way. Exclusions remain disclosed as a matter of USPAP regardless of how many there are, and every comparable is itemized in the calculation summary whatever this is set to. The setting governs how the prose reads, not what is disclosed.
Set to none to always summarize, which suits reports where the comparable schedule is attached separately.
Tell me what would make this better
Your address is used to reply to you — often the answer is a control you have not found yet, and that is a two-line email rather than a feature. It is linked to the report counts already held for this browser. It is never sold and never used for marketing.
Prototype worksheet — verify all figures and extracted data independently. Not a substitute for surveyor judgment or USPAP compliance review.